U.S. Interests

In your Feb. 17 editorial on Iraq (“A Message for Baghdad”), you state that Security Council members China, France and Russia are not facing up to that country because of “their own self-serving commercial and political reasons.”

How about saying something about U.S. and British financial motives in the region, such as the vast sums obtained from Saudi defense purchases--sums that are at an all-time high due to that country’s increased oil sales as a result of the nine-year oil embargo on Iraq. You might also mention the tens of billions in commercial investment revenue pumped into the American and British economies since the late ‘70s--again from the “petrodollars” of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the other Persian Gulf states.

Sure, the Chinese, Russians and French want to collect on their weapons sales made to Iraq throughout the ‘80s. Please try, however, to show some balance on the issue by presenting other relevant facts.

MARK GERY

Santa Ana